


Farmers Hours

by lar_laughs



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Natasha Romanov's Arrow Necklace, Where Was Clint Barton During Captain America 2?, farming as therapy, fury has an endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fury has had an endgame in mind for a long time. Just because he's never shared it with Clint doesn't mean he isn't a big part of it. Just because it involves a farm in the middle of America doesn't mean Clint can't enjoy himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farmers Hours

Clint had never seen anything worse than the expression on Fury’s face the day he told him there was no longer a place for him at SHIELD. He’d been cleared for duty by all the right doctors, including Bruce Banner and Jane Foster. No hint of Loki’s strange blue light lingered in his eyes. His brain was his own.

But still he sat in the chair across from Fury’s desk and tried to piece together the words that were flowing out of Fury’s mouth. Before he could get it straight, he was being ushered out of the office and handed a box packed with the few belongings he’d kept in his locker here at headquarters.

He stood right outside the doors until a couple of burly security officers ushered him across the bridge and off the property. A sleek limo pulled up beside him and the back window moved down with an electric whine.

“Get in, loser. We’re going shopping.”

>>>\----->

Puppies left behind at the pound looked happier than Clint did as he climbed into the limo. He stared out the window as they pulled into traffic, watching the Triskelion fade from view. Or maybe not because they were blocks away and he was too still. Too quiet.

Darcy snapped her fingers together in front of his nose. Or, she tried. He captured her hand in one of his before she had a chance. The fierce expression on his face sent a shiver of fear running through her but he let her go before she could lash out. It didn’t matter if a girl was suddenly riding around in limos. She still had to know how to protect herself.

He leaned forward, his forehead resting on the edge of the box. For a another long minute, she thought he was going to be carsick. “Open a window. I’m not going to explain to Tony why his favorite limo smells like vomit.”

This made Clint raise his head and look around, as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. “This isn’t Tony’s favorite limo.”

“Whatever.” Darcy waved off his irritated look. “Are you ready for the next stage of the plan?”

“The... plan?”

“Fury’s plan. He fired you and left you on the street with your box of goodies and a pretty defeated expression. I’d bet that a good majority of SHIELD saw you. What do you think? Seventy five percent?”

“What?”

Darcy leaned over to get a bottle out of the mini fridge she’d found pretty quickly for never having ridden in a limo before. If Tony didn’t want her to drink anything, he shouldn’t have kept it so well stocked.

She handed Clint a bottle of the kind of pricey IPA she’d acquired a taste for. Running with Jane was teaching her to appreciate the good stuff. He took a deep swig before she could even get hers open.

“Explain this plan thing, Darcy, before I head back and start putting arrows into Fury’s favorite toys.”

She outlined the plan as best as she could with an angry archer reaching for whatever weapon was strapped to his lower back. He didn’t like it any better than they'd told her he would but she could see acceptance in his tortured gaze. They’d all had to make some sacrifices lately, but it still struck her that Clint was being asked to make the biggest one yet.

>>>\----->

It took Clint exactly twenty-four hours before he had his first breakdown. They pulled to the side of the nearly deserted road and Darcy sat on the hood of the limo as he sunk arrow after arrow into a fence post. His breathing was ragged and a few arrows didn’t hit the mark, a sure sign he wasn’t handling things well.

With a growl of rage from somewhere deep in his chest, he went to pick up his arrows but he didn’t put them back in the quiver right away. Instead, he stared at them as if he was hoping they would unravel to produce a sheet of paper with Fury’s plan laid out in black and white. Even having Darcy walk him through it four times still didn’t make it any more clear.

It was madness. It was twisted and couldn’t work. Wouldn’t work.

Because, if it did, it really meant they didn’t need him. Not really. He was being sent away. Not even deep cover. Just... away.

Instead of breaking each individual arrow into a thousand pieces, he carefully returned them to the quiver. Instead of slinging it over his shoulder, he dropped it to the ground. His arms hung down, too heavy for his body to hold up correctly. Everything felt disjointed and out of place. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

“If we’re going to stay here much longer, I’m going to need sunscreen. You didn’t pack any, did you?”

Darcy’s voice sounded different than it had for the hours of words she’d spewed words he neither listened to or cared about. She’d needed to fill the silence and he’d let her.

Two girls sat on the car now. One looked bored and the other looked all too interested in this little one-act play.

He straightened, letting out the deep breath he’d forgotten to release since he’d left Fury’s office. It felt a little less like a kidnapping with his favorite spy ready to save him.

“Natasha.”

She grinned, looking at him over her sunglasses. “You remember how to talk. See, I told you he’d come around, Darcy. A little catatonic fit never hurt anyone.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to see you miss. Never thought I’d see the day.”

A slow blush moved up his neck. He wasn’t going to hear the last from that performance any time soon. “You being banished, too?”

“Nope.” She blew a bubble with her gum and let it pop. “Pick up your arrows, Hawkeye. We’ve got places to be. People to see.”

Darcy got back into the limo and it drove off before he could react. He felt like an idiot when he started to panic about being in the middle of nowhere but a battered pick-up truck was parked across the road.

“I thought you liked your cars to have sleek lines.” He meant it as a jab but it came out just sounding lame. It was a shame how out of practice he was at this verbal sparring they were known for.

“Not mine.” Natasha threw him the keys and he caught them... sort of. He was slipping into pathetically out of touch with his surroundings. Right now, he needed some distance and some time to think.

“Nope.” Natasha was standing so close in front of him that she had to tip her head clear back to see him. He blinked a couple of times, clearing away the fog once again. Her smile was rueful, as if she understood what was going on in his head and didn’t like it anymore than he did. “You aren’t being dropped off at the orphanage, Clint. If you didn’t believe Darcy, believe me. There’s a bigger plan at work here. You aren’t being left behind.”

He dropped his forehead down to rest on hers. One of his hands found hers and he linked his fingers with hers. It took a couple of deep breaths before he could speak but, even then, he couldn’t find the words. He didn’t need them. Not around Natasha. She stood in front of him and heard everything he wanted to say and couldn’t. Everything he didn’t understand. Everything that frustrated him. Every hurt he’d relived in the past day.

“Come see the farm,” she finally whispered. “You’ll understand when you see it.”

>>>\----->

Clint heard the warning chimes but he’d gotten the text earlier in the day. Nothing was going to stop the car from driving down the dirt road, the plume of dust a good reminder that he needed to take the water truck out and give it a good dousing. The weather forecast didn’t call for rain and he didn’t like the neighbors being able to track any movement out here. From what he’d heard on the newscast last night, he was going to have several visitors before the end of the week.

“Visitors,” he bellowed as he opened the front door, hoping to alert the dogs so the car could park without having to navigate the barricade of snarling beasts. He didn’t know where Thor had gotten some of these animals, but he hesitated to call them dogs. The animals, both those from earth and those who weren’t, got along. For the most part. It was the most he could hope for.

The car was moving fast and slid to a stop well past where the brakes had first been applied. He couldn’t help but grin as Natasha hopped out of the driver’s seat while an unsteady Steve climbed out from the seat behind her.

“I told you those cops weren’t going to try anything.”

“But they could have. You were going too fast for these country roads and-”

“Country roads? They were paved, weren’t they? Besides, I was only going five miles over.” Natasha looked over her shoulder and grinned up at Clint. “What do you think, Farmer Pete? How fast do you drive on these here country roads.”

“Your accent is horrid, Tasha. We’re in Middle America. We’re not mountain people.” He held his arms open, just in time to catch Natasha as she threw herself into his embrace. She looked tired and he didn’t like the way she was carrying her left arm, but she still smelled like cherry blossoms and dust. He rubbed his cheek on the top of her hair. “Missed you.”

“Always,” she whispered against his neck.

The dogs barking themselves into a frenzy finally pulled Clint out of this perfect space. Steve and another man, most likely the illustrious Sam Wilson he’d heard so much about, were pressed against the car.

“Bet you wished you visited now and then, don’t you?”

Steve only glared until Clint called off the dogs. Grasping one of Natasha’s hands in his, he opened the front door and ushered the visitors inside the small farm house. While the land really was being farmed and was everything it appeared to be, the buildings on the property were clever disguises for what they actually housed. The three rooms above ground (kitchen/dining room, bedroom, the smallest bathroom known to man) were seldom used even though the house looked sufficiently lived in.

Everything that Tony had in his tower, Clint had below-ground. A sort of reverse nesting ground. The awed expressions of his guests was enough to deepen his grin. He left Steve and Sam in front of the gaming TV (not to be mistaken for the theater TV a floor down) and walked back to the kitchen where Natasha was brewing a cup of tea.

He watched her pull the tea bag out of the mug and stir in a spoonful of sugar. Instead of taking a sip, she kept stirring. To give her plenty of space, he jumped up to sit on the counter and stared at her back, trying to read her thoughts.

“You going to tell me what went on? A few texts and the local news coverage were a little sparse on the details.”

Natasha fingered the small arrow necklace he’d given her, a sure sign she was ordering her words to give him the story as succinctly as possible. He hated when she held back but he took what he could get, when he could get it. She never held out for long. His patience was always rewarded, even if it killed him to be on the outside of everything, never able to swoop in to help out.

“It’s gone. All of it. No more SHIELD. All our secrets are out there for anyone to find.”

Clint only felt a twinge of worry. His secrets were slight and boring compared to everyone else. His real worry was for Natasha. “How many covers did you burn?”

“All of them,” she sighed before going back to biting her lower lip.

“Does Steve think he can find Bucky?”

Her shoulders tensed, proving he’d found the real reason she was so quiet. She took a sip of the swirling tea but put the mug back down. For the second time today, he barely had time to open his arms before she was pressed against his chest. She listened to his heartbeat for several minutes before he heard a soft sniff. He tightened his hug and let her cry.

>>>\----->

Their time together was brief. It always was, these days.

“Come with me,” she finally said on their last morning, her head in her hand as she lay propped on his chest. Sunlight (or a great approximation that never left Clint wishing for the real thing) streamed through the windows, highlighting the strands of her hair floating around her head until she looked like she was on fire.

He stretched an arm over his head, letting it rest on the headboard. “I’ve got crops that need tending.”

“You’re way too into this farming business.”

“I’m the endgame, honey. I can’t afford to mess up my cover now.”

The truth of his situation had come gradually, bits of reality crowding into the quiet moments when he went over every conversation he’d ever had with Fury. The man had never explained himself. Clint was only now able to forgive him. Word of the Director’s death had forced him to realize what a gift Fury had bestowed on him. Even knowing that he was really alive and in hiding, Clint finally had the closure he needed.

“What if I need you?” Natasha whispered, her voice dripping with more emotion than he was used to hearing.

“Then call. I’ll come.” He smoothed a work-roughened finger over the line of freckles on her cheekbone. “Miss you, Tasha.”

She moved her head so that his finger stroked across her lips. “Always.”

>>>\----->

Natasha stared out the car window, barely registering the scenery that went by a sedate pace. She’d barely put up a fuss when Steve demanded the keys. Sam and Steve had been debating music since they’d gotten in the car, their words droning like a swarm of bees above her head.

“Stop.”

The word came out of nowhere, forcing it’s way up her throat and out her mouth before she could stop it. She was aware that Steve was staring at her and not the road, very unlikely behaviour for Mr. Conscientious Driver. As she glanced at him, ready to let them off the hook for her horrible behavior, she saw him glance in the rear view mirror.

The car rolled to a stop on the edge of the road. “I stopped.” Steve turned to face her, a secret smile playing at his mouth. She really hated this mischievous streak he’d discovered recently. It made him as dangerous as Stark for pranks. “Now get out.”

“What?” Sam began to protest but stopped when Steve turned to look at him.

“Get out,” he said again.

Natasha was about to protest when she saw a cloud of dust following them. The rusted black pick up truck making the dust drove all other protests away. She couldn’t unhook her seatbelt quick enough and Steve had to reach over and open the door when she fumbled with the handle too many times.

“You want us to come pick you up?” Steve hollered after her.

She paused, trying to think past the next few minutes. “I’ll find my own way back.”

“Natasha,” he called out again, forcing another pause. She glared at him expectantly. “You’d make a great farmer.”

“No.” She grinned widely. “I’d be a fabulous farmer.”

And this time she didn’t stop running for anything.


End file.
